


uncalculated

by yonnna



Category: Baccano!
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Fluff, huey has no idea what human contact is, physical closeness? what's that? a disease?, spoilers - 1705
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-28
Updated: 2017-03-28
Packaged: 2018-10-08 09:15:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10383303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yonnna/pseuds/yonnna
Summary: Sometimes when they touch he does not think about it at all. He supposes that should trouble him, and somehow it does not.Written for the prompt "the feel of fingers brushing together by accident".





	

 

The first time it happened he had drawn away reflexively. 

They must have been sixteen. They must have been studying at the library, or the warehouse. He didn’t keep note of the details, because ultimately it was nothing — almost nothing, next to nothing, a fleeting touch caused by uncoordinated action — but he remembered that he had drawn away, if only because Monica’s response had been so vivid. He recalled her, bright red and overflowing with apology; in her face, furrowed brow quivering lips, wide eyes, and in her words:  _“Oh, Huey, I-I-I’m sorry, I d-didn’t mean to… s-sorry!”_

He had assured her it was fine, but she had kept a safe distance following this, and he wondered whether she had taken his stiffness as a warning — whether the sharp intake of his breath had sounded like a siren to ward her off getting too close, when all it had been meant to sound like was _surprise_. 

It wasn’t as though the feeling had been entirely unfamiliar. When the situation called for it, he did not hesitate to take her hand himself, and while this was not something he made a habit of, the fact that it was deliberate meant that he still exercised control over it; he was able to maintain his sense of detachment because the closeness was so artificial, so purposeful that he could pull away from it the second it ceased to be _functional_. He kept tabs on this closeness. He was aware of it, _wary_  of it. He knew when it was happening, and when it was not it was _distinctly_ not. When he retreated into his bubble of isolation, that isolation was absolute. No lingering presence, no traces of warmth, no skin brushing lightly against his.

But somewhere down the line this had changed. 

Somewhere down the line, he knew after that small incident, the world had shifted on its axis; just slightly, just by a hair’s breadth, but enough for him to notice. The closeness had become pervasive; not in the sense that it was constant, but in the sense that the _possibility_  of it was. No more was contact a thing belonging exclusively to careful deliberation. Now there was room for chance. Now there was room for accidents. 

Because his walls had not been broken down by force, he had not considered that he was allowing Monica close enough for such accidents to be possible. He had not considered that it was _his_  unchecked behaviour which would let her slip past his guard so easily, which would let her hands skim past his without him  _choosing_  for them to. 

Her hands which, he supposed, were tougher than he expected them to be and softer than he thought they should be; which were nimble, which told stories he’d seen only flickers of. Hands which, he knew, wanted to hold him. Which he sometimes — only sometimes, and only to himself, and only briefly — ventured he would not mind holding or being held by, based on the not-unpleasantness of these passing touches. 

He was becoming too comfortable. With this. With her. With the unplanned. With _colliding_. 

And he could not fathom a logical explanation as to why. 

“Because you like her,” Elmer explained far too simply, and when he glared he amended: “Hey, I’m not even talking about liking her like _that_ — not this time, anyway. She’s your friend, Huey. I think it’s normal to be comfortable around your friends.” 

“I’m not comfortable around  _you_ ,” he muttered, but not quietly enough for Elmer to miss it. 

“So you’re saying I’m your friend? That’s great! That means you’ve got at least _two_  friends. That’s something worth smiling about, right?”

He did not smile, but he thought about his words for some time. 

 _She’s your friend_. 

After some deliberation, he concluded this much was true. Though he would have liked to be able to say that he only associated with her because her identity as the Mask Maker made her an invaluable asset, that would _not_  explain why he spent time with her when she was _Monica_. It would not explain why he walked to school with her, and studied with her, and discussed with her topics which he could not pretend were relevant to their plans. It would not explain why, when invited, he agreed to spend afternoons helping her bake, and when their fingers met through fumbling, careless motions — it would not explain why he no longer flinched away. 

All evidence suggested that Monica possessed some quality beyond mere usefulness, and the prognosis — the suggestion that, perhaps, he simply _enjoyed_ her company — was more difficult to deny with every day spent by her side. 

Around the same time he had stopped drawing away, she had stopped stammering apologies. Now when it happened she laughed instead; a light, breathy giggle, flustered but not apologetic. 

“That was a really nice smile,” Elmer commented after a particular spell of this laughter preceding their morning lesson. Huey settled into a seat across from him, his arms folded over his chest. 

“It was exactly the same as all her other smiles, Elmer,” he sighed. “You’re the only one who sees anything different.”

“I was talking about _yours_ ,” he grinned. “I think that smile’s going to keep me going for about three days, two hours, and twenty-six minutes — but once that’s up you’re gonna have to smile like that again. Deal?”

Huey, who had not been aware he was smiling at all, took a beat to respond. From across the room he watched Monica hold animated conversation with their professor, then, shaking his head to himself, he sighed. 

“That’s too specific. I’m not going to promise you that.”


End file.
